Author: o.grimeh

The current liberal world order was established after World War II, by the creation and enhancement of global governance systems such as the UN, participation in the WTO and WHO, as well as the IMF and more.  However, the current rise of populism and cracks in NATO has shown the schism between elites vs. the population has been rising everywhere, including the West.

The current liberal world order has been put in place by the U.S., but with the influence of various countries across the world increasing in scope, the current world liberal order seems to be at stake.  There seems to be a fundamental issue of trust with various people and both national and global institutions, as well as expertise.  In addition, although the global governance systems – as well as national political institutions – has stayed relatively stagnant or behind in adapting to new demands and changes, the pace at which both technology and private industry has evolved has been very fast.  Owing to this, there are a lot of issues that point to a fundamental change that needs to happen.

No one can see what will happen next – with the COVID-19 crisis, economically other rising powers such as China has cemented its influence as well as economic growth internally, but there are also U.S. policy changes that will most likely happen under Biden-Harris post-2020.  There remains a lot to be seen, but it seems that there are more things pointing to a change in the liberal world order – whether by a new successor – or a fundamental change to amend it from its existing system.

 

https://www.cfr.org/article/liberal-world-order-rip

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/09/liberal-international-order-free-world-trump-authoritarianism/569881/

The current impact of COVID-19 has caused many countries, governments, and international organizations to realize the vast impact that global health securities such as pandemics, medical and food shortages, and by extension, biological agents, may have on global security.  The outbreak has taken toll on economies, societies, and the disruption to supply chains showed the potential impact to various nations as well.

This also highlighted the need for a multilateral approach to global health security.  The Global Health Security Agenda has expanded to address and handle such concerns, greatly influenced by the current, ongoing pandemic.  The acceleration of priorities towards securing food and resource scarcities and preventative health measures has been a key concern for future pandemics and lessons learned from COVID-19.  Below is some information on the GHSA:

Global Health Security Agenda

With the new technologies and the rising uncertainty and challenges that the world is facing recently, there is more urgency to reduce nuclear risks. this Agenda recommends that the next U.S administration can lead the way in further reducing the risk of nuclear use though diplomacy and by demonstrating leadership. they recommend also that the new president should narrow the range of scenarios in which the U.S. would consider using Nuclear weapons and urges other states with similar weapons to adopt similar positions. In addition, this agenda recommends that the U.S should work with Russia and china to reduce nuclear risks. Also to strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime and roll back and prevent proliferation- Agree on a P5 (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) declaration that a “nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

 

https://media.nti.org/documents/Reducing_Nuclear_Risks_An_Urgent_Agenda_for_2021_and_Beyond.pdf

 

Due to Iran’s continued efforts on nuclear weapons capacities, Saudi Arabia has been pushing for more nuclear weapons capabilities in the international arena. However, the new aspirations tend to focus on energy sources, and nuclear energy efforts are underway. Saudi Arabia has been trying to walk the line between both deterring Iran’s nuclear capabilities with its own, as well as making sure the international community and its trading partners are in line.

With the recent German arms ban to Saudi Arabia as well as Saudi Arabia’s boycott of Turkish products, it seems that there may be more isolation from Saudi Arabia and potential developments into developing its weapons technology, potentially via nuclear means.  With the oil price drop in 2020 causing a $27.5 billion revenue drop for Saudi Arabia, it seems that there may be more geopolitical and economic reasons for Saudi Arabia to develop more warfare capability as well.

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Oil-Price-Crash-Costs-Saudi-Arabia-275-Billion-In-Revenue-In-2020.html

https://www.dailysabah.com/business/economy/saudi-arabia-suspends-buying-animal-products-from-turkey

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/15/saudi-minister-slams-german-arms-ban-kingdom-doesnt-need-them

North Korea recently unveiled a massive nuclear capable missile with a Transporter Erector Launcher. This 90 ft tall, 10 ft diameter intercontinental ballistic missile – the Hwasong-16 – is believed to be capable of hitting U.S. cities such as D.C. and New York.  The new developments in the ICBM that are nuclear-capable show that there may be other developments going on in North Korea.

Due to the lack of sanctions relief, Kim has decided to conduct the ongoing nuclear and missile technology tests. However, there hasn’t been the traditionally aggressive rhetoric against the United States and thus it remains to be seen what the North Korean foreign policy approach towards the United States and the rest of the world may look like.

 

North Korea unveils massive nuclear-capable missile with US reach

Sudan has become the 3rd country in the Arab world to normalize relations with Israel in the past couple months, following behind the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. This was part of a U.S.-brokered accord, and the current Sudanese administration and Israel has been discussing ways to move forward, as well as what comes next from this process.

However, there are some political factions within Sudan that have rejected the accord. As Sudan transitions towards free elections, there still remains steps that are yet to proceed. There has been discussions about the potential discussions on trade related to agriculture and other products, as well as potential migration deals that may be on the table.

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sudan-israel/sudan-says-it-will-discuss-trade-migration-deals-with-israel-idUSKBN27A0LB

The Syrian conflict started 10 years ago and so far, it has led to more than 500,000 deaths and displaced an estimated 13 million (over half of Syria’s pre-war population). Over 6.2 million Syrians are internally displaced, and 5.6 million are refugees, predominantly in Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey.

As the pandemic poses extraordinary challenges for the whole world, the situation is far worse in Syria -one of the world’s most complex conflict zones. After nearly a decade of war, Syria’s health care system is in a complete mess. With less supplies and trained personnel, medical providers have struggled to meet the needs of millions of displaced Syrians. To make things worse, and despite international condemnation, medical workers have not been spared from the violence.  health care facilities have been targeted by military strikes over 500 times since 2011.

Throughout the world, there has been more and more rising nationalism driven by populist policies and a generally higher mistrust of global institutions and global governance.  Due to this, there has been a dismantling across the board and questioning of these global governance structures (whether it was Trump’s rhetoric on NATO, the U.K. and Brexit from the EU, as well as some countries and their relationship to the United Nations and the WTO).  For the United Nations, due to their lack of peacekeeping ability (in terms of military peacekeeping efforts as well as enforcing treaties and other international rules and laws).

Because of the bureaucratic nature of the U.N. when it comes to peacekeeping and ability to enforce those standards as well as a rising nationalistic overtone to national politics of various countries, there seems to be less effectiveness for the U.N. when it comes to peacekeeping as well as global governance.  This is exacerbating the divide of opinions about the nationalistic vs. globalistic views, and also the gap between the dire necessity for global governance such as the U.N. vs. the people’s perceptions of its needs, especially in a global pandemic and rising tensions and increasingly hostile policies in both talk and trade.

Since there doesn’t seem to be anything bridging this divide at the moment, things seem to be increasingly less stable and tensions seem to be heightening in a time of high volatility, and international diplomacy may be at a standstill.

China and U.S. has been trading partners with each other, but there has also been a lot of economic competition between them, including strategic investments, technological research, as well as more recently, trade wars.  Now, there also seem to be competitions related to various economic initiatives with trade partners, as China has done with the Belt and Road Initiative.  In the U.S., there has been more push towards trade embargoes and sanctions, as well as national security-related push to prevent Chinese companies with ties to the Chinese government.  There seems to also be more difference in long-term economic strategy, which has been heating up the conflicts in hegemony and influence over different regions in the world, such as the South China Sea.  This seems to be a parallel in terms of economic competition as well as hegemonic competition between the U.S. and China.

Recently, there has been much more activity of Russian fighter jet intercepts of U.S. and NATO joint planes near Crimea.  The U.S., under Pres. Trump, has been increasing pressure on Russia to sign a nuclear weapons treaty ahead of the November 2020 elections.  There has been rising tensions between Russia, alleging that the U.S. and NATO operations in Crimea are undermining their airspace, while NATO is responding back by saying Russia is violating their airspace and conducting dangerous intercepts.

There has also been more NATO warship activity in the Black Sea, and Russia is on edge due to this as well.  Russia’s military has charged that NATO is doing more reconnaissance and military activity, while NATO has fired back there is more dangerous maneuvers by Russian intercepts and the annexation of Crimea in 2014 as an explanation.  These rising tensions are adding to potentially more hostility in an already destabilized region.

References:

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2020/09/20/russian-military-says-us-and-nato-flights-near-crimea-fuel-tensions/

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/18/politics/us-russia-nuclear-treaty/index.html